Hollywood Revue Of 1929

Sir John Mills – English Iconic Actor

Sir john Mills is one of England’s greatest acting Icons and is remembered for appearing in more than 100 films in a 70 years plus period. Sir John Mills was born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills on February 22nd 1908, at the Watts Naval Training College in North Elmham, Norfolk, England. The young Mills grew up in Belton, where his father was the headmaster of the village school and in in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where his father was a mathematics teacher and his mother was a theatre box-office manager. As a fan of John Mills my favourite of his films was “Ice Cold in Alex”, “The Colditz Story” and “Great Expectations”.

After training as a dancer, he was first on stage in the chorus of The Five O’Clock Revue (1929) and was regularly on the London stage, in revues, musicals and straight plays, throughout the 30s, as well as making films before war broke out. He is an engaging juvenile lead in such 1930s pieces as The Ghost Camera (1933), the chirpy musical Car of Dreams (1935), the love interest for Nova Pilbeam’s Tudor Rose (1936), and the schoolboy grown into soldier in Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939).

But WW2 changed everything for Mills, as it did for so many connected with British cinema. The roles he played ‘In Which We Serve’ (1942), ‘We Dive at Dawn’ (1943), ‘This Happy Breed’, ‘Waterloo Road’ (1944) and The Way to the Stars (1945) defined a new kind of British film hero. He was the boy next door in his ordinariness. He also established an everyman reliability under stress; showing himself to be decent, brave and loyal.

John Mills was always noted for his sincerity and believability rather than for romantic qualities. He topped the Picturegoer poll in 1947 for his performance as Pip, the personable everyman in ‘Great Expectation’s (1946), emphatically a figure for a supposedly more egalitarian Britain; the tormented hero, an industrial chemist who fears he may have committed murder, in The October Man (1947).

This ordinary decency was elevated in ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ (1948) to the status of national hero. It is the nobility of sacrifice for others which turns physical suffering and defeat into a spiritual triumph; a victory for the team rather than for charismatic individualism. In place of the debonair gentleman’s dash and charm, Mills embodied a boyish enthusiasm which is deepened by testing into a gritty determination to continue whatever the cost.

He was the shabby private detective in ‘The End of the Affair’ (1954). The twitchy, repressed military types in ‘Tunes of Glory’ (1960) and ‘Tiara Tahiti’ (1962) and he is ultimately very moving as the father in ‘The Family Way’ (1966) who may have loved no one as much as his dead mate.

John Mills was also much admired in ‘Morning Departure’ (1950) as a similarly inspirational leader, this time a submarine captain who has to encourage three of his crew, trapped with him in their stricken craft, to face death calmly. Despite his versatility as an actor, Mills continued to achieve his greatest success in similar roles: as Commander Fraser in ‘Above Us the Waves’ (1955), and as Pat Reid, the head of the escape committee, in ‘The Colditz Story’ (1955).

It was however as the captain in ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ (1958) that pushed by exhaustion into alcoholism, which really brought out the best in Mills. A superb piece of film-making that embodied most of the key characteristics of ‘being British’. There are two lovely scenes, the first being at the sand hill and ensuing tension when Syms and Mills meet at the bottom after the Landover rolls back down. The second I feel is at the bar where Mills drinks the Carlsberg and his character courageously addresses post war attitudes. In return Qualye’s character admits that the British were not what he had supposed them to be. Both of these statements would both have been very conciliatory at the time. Why ‘Ice Cold’ did not win Oscars…

Typically, then he got the Oscar for a grotesque piece of facial and vocal distortion in the inflated Ryan’s Daughter (1970) – supporting actor Oscars have always been drawn to this sort of cosmetic display – when one could nominate a dozen far less showy, more worthy contenders among his roles. Even in perfectly ordinary films like The Vicious Circle (1957), one never stops believing in him.

The later decades saw him many in character roles such as Gandhi (1982); Kenneth Branagh then enlisted him for Hamlet (1996) to play the mute role of `Old Norway’, for whom Shakespeare had thoughtlessly failed to produce lines. Though partially now deaf and blind, he still evidenced the chipper persona honed below the decks in those films half a century earlier. The achievement is there in the CV and it has been recognised with a CBE (1960), a Knighthood (1976) and the BAFTA Special Tribute Award (1987).

List Of Sir John Mills Films:

1932

The Midship Maid

1932

Words and Music

1933

The Ghost Camera

1933

Britannia of Billingsgate

1934

River Wolves

1934

A Political Party

1934

Those Were the Days

1934

The Lash

1934

Blind Justice

1934

Doctor’s Orders

1935

Royal Cavalcade

1935

Forever England

1935

Charing Cross Road

1935

Car of Dreams

1936

First Offence

1936

OHMS

1937

The Green Cockatoo

1939

Goodbye Mr Chips

1940

All Hands

1940

Old Bill and Son

1941

Cottage to Let

1941

The Black Sheep of Whitehall

1942

The Big Blockade

1942

The Young Mr Pitt

1942

In Which We Serve

1943

We Dive at Dawn

1944

This Happy Breed

1944

Victory Wedding

1945

Waterloo Road

1945

The Way to the Stars

1945

The Sky’s the Limit

1946

Great Expectations

1947

So Well Remembered

1947

The October Man

1948

Scott of the Antarctic

1949

The History of Mr Polly

1950

The Rocking Horse Winner

1950

Morning Departure

1951

Mr Denning Drives North

1952

The Gentle Gunman

1953

The Long Memory

1954

Hobson’s Choice

1955

The Colditz Story

1955

The End of the Affair

1955

Above Us the Waves

1955

Escapade

1956

War and Peace

1956

It’s Great to be Young

1956

The Baby and the Battleship

1956

Around the World in 80 Days

1957

Town on Trial

1957

Vicious Circle

1958

Dunkirk

1958

I Was Monty’s Double

1958

Ice Cold in Alex

1959

Tiger Bay

1960

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

1960

Tunes of Glory

1960

The Singer Not the Song

1961

The Swiss Family Robinson (U.S.)

1961

Flame in the Streets

1962

The Valiant

1962

Tiara Tahiti

1963

The Chalk Garden

1964

The Truth About Spring

1965

Operation Crossbow

1966

King Rat (U.S.)

1966

The Wrong Box

1966

The Family Way

1967

Africa Texas Style (U.S.)

1967

Chuka (U.S.)

1969

Oh What a Lovely War

1969

Run Wild Run Free

1969

Emma Hamilton (Ger.)

1969

A Black Veil for Lisa

1971

Ryan’s Daughter

1971

Dulcimer

1972

Young Winston

1972

Lady Caroline Lamb

1973

Oklahoma Crude

1976

The Human Factor

1976

Trial by Combat

1977

The Devil’s Advocate

1978

The Big Sleep

1978

The 39 Steps

1979

Zulu Dawn

1982

Ghandi

1984

Sahara

1987

Who’s That Girl

1994

Deadly Advice

1995

The Grotesque

1996

Hamlet

1996

Bean

2003

Bright Young Things

Quotes:
I’ve never considered myself to be working for a living; I’ve enjoyed myself for a living instead.

Sir John Mills died aged 97 on 23rd April 2005 in The Chilterns, Buckinhamshire following a chest infection. A few months after Sir John’s death, his wife Mary Hayley Mills (Lady Mills) died on 1st December 2005. A British film actor par excellence, he was the last of his generation.

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The Chinese call Britain ‘The Island of Hero’s’ which I think sums up what we British are all about. We British are inquisitive and competitive and are always looking over the horizon to the next adventure and discovery.

Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th Century AD. I am also a direct descendent of Sir Christopher Wren which has given me an interest in English History and Icons which is great fun to research.

I have recently decided to write articles on my favourite subjects: English Sports, English History, English Icons, English Discoveries and English Inventions.

At present I have written over 100 articles which I call “An Englishman’s Favourite Bits Of England” in various Volumes.

Please visit my Blogs page http://Bloggs.Resourcez.Com where I have listed all my articles to date.

Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

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